Last Saturday I was supposed to go for a bike ride with my sister. But then she bailed on me with no fore-warning, which was seriously annoying (especially because I'd passed on several weekend trips so I could go biking with her). So I ended up going out to Point Reyes and hiking. I went a few months back and did a hike to Sculpture beach (there's an old blog with photos somewhere). This time I wanted to spend some serious time on the beach so I chose a hike called the Limantour Spit. It basically paralleled sand dunes on one side and the ocean on the other. Perfect! It was couple of miles each way. Once I got past the populated beach area and headed away from the people, I saw more and more wildlife. Flocks of Pelicans, cranes, crabs and occasionaly a Seal would poke it's head out of the water and stare at me. I reached what I thought was the end of the beach (it pretty much turned right, sharply and then looked like it ended into a rock wall) I sat myself down and ate my lovely Whole Foods Turkey Sandwich, apple and home-made chocolate chip cookies. Yum! A seagull tried it's best to look cute enough to feed throughout my lunch, but we all know that Seagulls are rats with wings! No food for him! (okay, okay, I did give him some of my turkey sandwich!)
California is a study in Microclimates. It's astonishing really, how quickly climates change around here. My trip to work is either a 24-minute train ride or a 30 minute drive in traffic (12 minutes if there is no traffic!). During that 24 minute train ride, the weather can be sometimes like this: 80 degrees at 8am in Walnut Creek. 5 miles down the road, 86 degrees in Lafayette. Four miles later you drive through the Caldecott tunnel (a tunnel through the hill that separates Oakland from the inner east bay), On the other side of the tunnel, it is a chilly, overcast, 65 degrees. Not kidding!
So after my lunch on the point of the spit, I laid back to take a nap and enjoy the sunshine, which came and went about every five minutes. It would alternate between sun, cold and fog drizzle in a time-lapsed loop. Pretty incredible.
When I got up from my little nap, I looked at the water only to see a seal sticking its head out of the water directly in front of me, staring at me. So I stared back. And then I grabbed my camera. He started heading down to the right and I followed, only a few feet later a really cool sight came into view: Over a hundred seals napping on the beach in a giant flock. They weren't the gross, huge harbor seals on pier 39, theses were darling little seals, light brown and white and black. As I walked towards them, they streamed into the water en masse. I took a ton of photos. The closer I got, the more rushed into the water and just waited there, heades bobbing in and out of the small bay, looking at me and waiting for me to leave.
After I took the photos I wanted, I headed back out to my car and then home. The fog was just starting to roll in and take over the beach and the sun was hidden for the day.
If only every day was a beach day!
